The drug lord arrested on September 19 in Culiacan, threatened the military who arrested him that he would be held for ransom like Ovidio, but this did not happen.
El Piyi offered half a million pesos to the military who arrested him to let him go free and threatened that they would send the “plebada de los ranchos” to rescue him, but they never arrived.
Judicial documents detail the arrest of Fernando “P”, “Piyi”, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar’s operator; and his collaborators Carlos Vladimir “N”, José Ismael “N”, Kevin Noé “N”, Cristian Giovanni “N”, Mario Alexander “N” and Cristian Rafael “N”.
The capture occurred on September 19 in a house located in the Santa Fe sector in Culiacán, when the fight between Chapos and Mayos began.
The detainees were sentenced to criminal proceedings for the crimes of carrying firearms, possession of cartridges in large quantities, possession of magazines, stockpiling weapons, bribery, operations with resources of illicit origin and against health.
The documents state that Piyi identified himself as “plaza chief” and after offering the soldiers 500,000 pesos that he was carrying in a backpack, he asked them to send him to the “plebada de los ranchos”.
According to the account given by the Public Prosecutor’s Office before the judge, the capture was allegedly circumstantial by a convoy of 21 Army personnel on board three patrol cars.
According to the prosecutor, at around 10:05 a.m. the soldiers were driving along an unnamed street when they noticed that, at a distance of approximately 15 meters, there were two men carrying long weapons and wearing tactical ballistic vests.
The two men pointed their guns at the militants shouting “we don’t want problems with the government, open up and fuck off”; and the soldiers told them to lower their weapons, but they replied “you’re going to be worth it, you’d better go back where you came in”.
The soldiers got out of the vehicles and the two men ran into a building and were chased.
Upon entering the house, the soldiers observed a patio area of 20 by 25 meters where an SUV and a sedan were parked, and there were five other armed men.
The men pointed their long guns at the agents and Piyi told them “I am the plaza chief, let’s get ready, I have half a million pesos in my backpack, take it and leave us the weapons because we are at war, they are going to send the ranchers, you better take the half a million I have”, and through the radio he said “send me to the ranchers, I got busted by the guachos”.
El Piyi, according to the military’s version, asked his men to put down their weapons and opened a backpack and showed bundles of 500 peso bills, but the soldiers subdued the seven men and detained them.
In the backpack they found 553 thousand pesos in 500 peso bills; 7 thousand pesos in a yellow envelope marked “gastos trampas”; another envelope with 7 thousand pesos and the phrase “gastos piyi”; and another one with 6 thousand pesos marked “gastos patrulla”, for a total of 573 thousand pesos.
The detainees were found with 14 weapons, magazines, cartridges; and in the trunk of a GMC Canyon pickup a 50 caliber Barret rifle and 29 cartridges of the same caliber, an AK 47 rifle, a 9 millimeter pistol, a .45 caliber pistol and a suitcase with 2,17 cartridges.
In the place there was also a backpack with 2,496 doses of methamphetamine weighing 510 grams and 2,992 fentanyl tablets weighing 348 grams.
After being arrested in Culiacán, the seven were taken to the airport and transferred to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation number 1 “Altiplano”, in Almoloya de Juárez, in the State of Mexico.
The defense attorneys asserted that there were no armed men outside the house, so the military’s entry into the house was unjustified, and therefore, the detention was illegal.
The defense attorneys presented a video of a nearby property to prove that the entry into the house was unjustified, but the judge determined that in front of the camera that recorded the video there was a lock that prevented the complete visualization of the house and it can only be observed that the soldiers arrive, get out of the vehicles, and approach the place, but it cannot be seen if they enter the house or if there is any detention.
“There is no material, there is no clear and objective information, what I expected to see was an image that was close or contiguous to this house and that would allow me to glimpse that the police did not find any person and that they just arrived and entered, but this is not so,” he indicated.
The judge determined that “the evidence of the prosecution, appreciated in a joint, integral and harmonic manner, valued in a free and logical way, is suitable and pertinent for the accreditation of the facts that the law indicates as crimes and the probability that the accused committed them”.
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) identified Piyi as a member of the cell led by Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, “El Nini,” who was arrested in 2023 and who operated for Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán’s sons.
The seven detainees were remanded in custody at the Altiplano.
Article published on December 29, 2024 in the 1144th edition of the weekly Ríodoce.
